Thanks to advances elsewhere in the pre-press arena, publishers have a newfound need for speed from their output devices. "As computers that supply data become bigger and faster, there is a greater demand for faster imaging," observed Debby Potocki, product manager for Autologic Information International of Thousand Oaks, Calif.
While computer-to-plate technology generated plenty of buzz at NEXPO'96, vendors also showcased speed breakthroughs from traditional outputters. The show's two high-speed mavens may well have been AII and Monotype Systems Inc. of Rolling Meadows, Ill.
Acronym-happy AII's APS SST Laser Imager produces images at 70 inches per minute at 1,000 dpi, with the ability to image at 2,540 and 3,600 dpi. The SST is based on AII's established 3850 family of laser imagers, of which 700 have been sold. Monotype's NewsExpress imager runs at 60 inches per minute at 1,000 dpi, though Support Systems Director Keith Roeske says it remains comparable to faster models because its film does not have to be pulled.
And it's film that now poses the largest stumbling block to faster speeds. With film processors lagging behind imagesetters in speed, film can "queue up" at the processor, Potoki argued. "We're making contacts with processing vendors to address this issue."
"Everyone wants faster images," Roeske agreed. "The biggest problem is getting film processors fast enough to develop the film."
One player: LogEtronics Corp. of Springfield, Va., which came to NEXPO touting a unit capable of processing film at 87 inches a minute, though it requires an additional 20 seconds for developing. Until recently, demand for such speed was virtually nonexistent because publishers favored slower, low-cost processors, said LogEtronics President Raymond Luca. Now, "newspapers are looking again at value"--even if that value carries with it a bigger price tag, he observed.
Watch for a new wave of faster, cross-platform raster-image-processor software, too. Cascade Systems Inc. of North Andover, Mass., introduced Orion RIP, a client-server implementation of Adobe's CPSI RIP, which allows support of multiple RIPs from multiple platforms. Installed at the Las Vegas Sun, Orion outputs four-color pages in less than two minutes and can be controlled using such cross-platform software as Netscape's browser. ECRM of Tewksbury, Mass., also entered an agreement to release its new NT PostScript-compatible RIP on Digital Equipment Corp.'s Alpha server platform.
To help speed the outputting of pages at remote locations, Linotype-Hell Co. of Hauppauge, N.Y., introduced FacsimileLink, which reads standard facsimile input and sends the data directly to Linotype-Hell's Herkules Pro drum recorders.
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